


5 times they don’t know + 1 time they find out

by SilverRowan_Ivy630951



Series: Steve and Bucky Go Commando [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: All songs/videos came out before 2011. Because I said so., Amputee Bucky Barnes, Because of Reasons, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Captain America Steve Rogers, Crying, Deaf Clint Barton, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everyone just assumes they are Steve & Bucky not Steve/Bucky, Fluff, Happy, M/M, Music, Piano, Sad, Secret Relationship, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve and Bucky have a dog, Ukulele, You may or may not see him but he is there, ww2 bucky barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-09-23 16:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20343430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverRowan_Ivy630951/pseuds/SilverRowan_Ivy630951
Summary: Bucky and Steve discover a music room on the Tower's common floor. This is the story of five times they don't realize they have an audience and one time they find out.-Or-The Avengers are shocked as hell.





	1. Sam and Natasha

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Daretodream66](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daretodream66/gifts).

> For helping me so much.
> 
> Some notes before I begin:
> 
> This is eventually going to be Part 3 (possibly Part 4) of a series. I am in the middle of writing the first part but this wouldn't get out of my head. I decided to write and post it as a trial run to try to figure out wtf I'm doing.
> 
> Because this is going to be Part 3, there are some things that you would find out earlier if I actually posted these in the correct order. Instead of flooding the tag section, I'll list the relevant stuff here.
> 
> Bucky and Steve are in an established relationship and have been since before WW2. They grew up in an orphanage with their sisters Becca and Stephanie. They were Bucky/Steve and Becca/Stephanie, but because of period-typical homophobia, they publicly went around as Bucky/Stephanie and Steve/Becca. When Bucky and Steve were declared MIA in WW2, Howard Stark helped the girls marry them posthumously. They lived together as widows.
> 
> All the Avengers assume they are Bucky & Steve not Bucky/Steve because of this. The guys have not bothered to correct them and Jarvis does not tell secrets that are no one else's business.
> 
> The guys have a giant dog that looks like a wolf (but is not a wolf). I am unsure, yet, if he will appear in this fic.
> 
> Bucky did not fall off the train in the Alps. He went down in the Valkyrie with Steve after losing his arm in the fight with Red Skull. He does not have a prosthetic in this.
> 
> And lastly, please ignore the publish date on all the songs/videos throughout this fic. I definitely did. Because of reasons. Assume all these songs/videos came out before 2011. Artistic license. Or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Edit 8-22]  
Hey-o. Don't mind me. I'm just over here rearranging a few things. Not the story. The story has not changed. Just trying to get the whatever-it's-called to match the coming chapters. Formatting? Whatever. Okay, I love you, bye-bye!  
[Another Edit] Because of course I forgot something. Sorry.

Hercules playlist: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbAR5k5sIKk&list=PL423EAE8171343727&index=12>

-_Go the Distance (single)_ – Hercules soundtrack

-_One Last Hope_ – Hercules soundtrack

-<strike>_I Won't Say (I'm In Love)_ – Hercules soundtrack</strike>

-_10,000 Miles_ – Mary Chapin Carpenter <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU1gU4T7o0c>

**1 – Sam and Natasha **

*****

Bucky strode into his and Steve’s shared living space in Avengers Tower and quickly scanned around the area. Excitement seemed to emanate from him as he made a beeline for the living room. Steve lay sprawled out on the couch in a large patch of sunshine while he read a book. The sunspot covered most of him and he shone bright, despite wearing dark gray sweatpants and a royal blue t-shirt.

Bucky stopped in front of him, blocking the sun, and Steve pointedly raised an eyebrow. Bucky was all but bouncing on his toes. His over-the-ear wireless headphones ringed his neck and bounced a little with him. “Steve! Steve! Steve!”

Steve couldn’t help it. His other eyebrow joined the first. Bucky practically vibrated with his excitement.

“What? What? What?” Steve asked, perfectly imitating Bucky’s excited gushing tone before turning his expression into one that made it clear he wasn’t nearly as excited as Bucky was. Because he was an ass like that and always had been.

Bucky scowled. But he could only hold it for a second before he ramped right back up into ‘overexcited puppy’ mode. “Please, you have to come with me! Pretty please?”

With a feigned put-upon sigh, Steve set his book facedown on the coffee table in lieu of finding a bookmark. He wasn’t even halfway to standing before Bucky’s impatience got the better of him. Bucky reached down to grab his hand and bodily hauled him up and out the door.

“And where exactly are we going?” Steve asked as he was pulled toward the elevator by Bucky’s grip on his wrist. Again, because he was an ass, he purposefully laced his tone with all the fond amusement of an adult humoring a toddler who’d just discovered the Next Amazing Thing.

Having long practice with Steve’s dickish tendencies, Bucky ignored the tone. Instead he answered what Steve actually wanted to know. “Sam and Natasha were in that room off the common room, you know, with the giant television? Near the kitchen. Well, I walked by and they were watching a movie. There was this little mess-up of a kid who nobody liked even though he had a good heart. They didn’t see me but I stayed and watched.”

They stepped off the elevator and Bucky dragged him down the hallway. “It had good music. Will you play some of the stuff?”

“With what, Buck?” Steve asked. His free arm spread out to the side showing that it was very obviously empty.

They stopped outside a door next to the common floor’s kitchen that Steve had assumed was some sort of hall closet since it had an actual door and not just an open doorway like most of the other rooms off the hallway. Steve had never once seen it open.

Bucky opened it now with all the pomp and ceremony of Vanna White revealing the answer to a puzzle—Sam had recently introduced them to Wheel of Fortune. Bucky had the theatrics down pat; all he was missing was the fancy dress and heels.

Behind the door was some sort of parlor. There were elegant looking couches and chairs, as well as a few coffee and end tables scattered around. Two little alcoves were sectioned off by some large potted plants which he couldn’t see past but assumed had additional seating.

Steve’s attention, however, was pulled to the far corner.

There sat an absolutely gorgeous concert grand piano. It was nine feet long if it was an inch and the black was so shiny that the rest of the room reflected back darkly. Steve’s sudden indrawn breath echoed around the room, proving the acoustics built into the space. He almost felt like he floated over to the gorgeous instrument.

His hand reached out but stopped just short of touching. He hovered a few inches above the fallboard closed protectively over the keys.

With wide eyes, he looked over to the jerk who smirked at him. “Can we— Are we allowed to—” Steve couldn’t even finish his sentence, still in awe at standing next to the most beautiful piano he’d ever seen.

He did, however, jump and snatch his hand back, like a child caught reaching into a cookie jar, when Jarvis’s cultured voice echoed around the room. “You are, indeed, allowed to play it. To my knowledge, no one allowed on the residential floors knows how to do so.”

Taking a breath, Steve looked over his shoulder. “Okay, Buck. Pull up whatever you want me to play and give me a few minutes. He went about propping open the lid and settling comfortably on the bench. A few minutes of running improvised scales, listening to each key on the keyboard, and getting a feel for the pedals and he was ready.

Bucky handed him his phone and the headphones from around his neck. With a look at the screen, Steve’s eyebrows rose. “_Hercules_? The demi-god?” he asked, surprised. “Someone made a movie about an adulterer’s offspring who was driven mad, killed his wife and children, and then performed tasks for a corrupt king so he could become immortal? And you want me to play music from it?”

“To be fair,” Bucky said with a shrug, “it’s an animated kid’s movie so it’s nothing like the actual mythology. Zeus and Hera are good and Hades is bad.”

“What? That’s not—” Steve muttered to himself.

“It’s got some pretty good music regardless.” Bucky continued. “He reminded me a bit of you, actually.”

“Me, huh?” Steve teased with a smirking grin.

A faint blush rose on Bucky’s cheeks. “It’s about a small, gangly, awkward kid with blue eyes, gold hair, and a heart too big for his body. He goes off with practically nothing but his determination and signs his stubborn ass up for boot camp with a grumpy goat-man who doesn’t believe in him until the kid proves his worth. The little guy turns into a big guy saves the world a lot.”

Steve jokingly threw Bucky his ‘aw, shucks’ face. Bucky knew damn well that it was completely fake but, goaded by it, he narrowed his eyes. “He also battles a hydra. And he’s beyond stupid ‘cause he won’t stop cutting off its fucking heads, as if he’s expecting something different to happen than all the other times. Doesn’t stop until it’s a shit-fest and he’s forced to actually use his goddamned brain. Like I said, _it reminded me of you_.”

Steve gave him a flat stare before he turned thoughtful. “You really liked it, huh?”

“It reminded me of you,” he shrugged before pausing for a beat. Smirking, he added, “Because he went off and took all the stupid with him.”

*****

Sam and Natasha exchanged looks. After they’d watched the movie, they’d made some quick sandwiches and moved to what Tony had dubbed the music room. They’d decided to eat in companionable silence. No one was ever in there because no one knew how to play the giant monstrosity in the corner. Apparently they were wrong on both counts.

They could just barely make out Steve and Bucky on the other side of the thick plant foliage. Steve sat on the bench facing the room, big headphones covering his ears. His eyes were closed, apparently concentrating. Bucky stared intently at him.

Unsure of what exactly was going on, Sam and Nat looked at each other again before shrugging and mutually deciding to stay quiet. After about five minutes, Steve handed the headphones back to Bucky.

“Good?” Bucky asked.

“Yep. You were right. It’s a nice song. I mean, not something I would’ve ever associated with _Hercules_, but a nice song nonetheless.” He turned around facing the piano and Bucky settled down on his left.

Their hidden audience grinned as they watched Bucky practically dancing in his seat.

When Steve set his fingers on the keys and started to play, Natasha and Sam’s jaws dropped. It was clear that Steve hadn’t known the song before Bucky showed it to him. He hadn’t even known the movie existed. But now he played _Go the Distance_ like he’d been practicing it forever.

When Steve started singing, their eyes widened in astonishment.

He had a smooth baritone and it was beautiful. His voice rang around the room and they were treated to just how good the acoustics were. The hairs on Nat’s arms actually stood up as goosebumps appeared. She held her arm out to Sam so he could see. He nodded in shocked agreement before turning back to watch the little he could see through the dark green leaves.

Apparently Steve was playing the single version from the soundtrack, not the one in the movie, because it was longer and had some different words. Nearing the end of the song, Steve’s voice cracked as he tried to hit a high note and they saw him wince at the sound. Bucky just leaned over to playfully nudge Steve’s shoulder with his own.

The song ended on such an emotional note that they could almost believe Steve actually was singing to his love.

Sam raised his hands like he was about to clap but Nat grabbed them and shook her head frantically. Something told her that if they interrupted, the music would stop.

Moments later, Bucky was pushing the headphones back at Steve with adorably hopeful sounds. Steve chuckled. “Another?” He popped the headphones back over his ears and listened carefully for a few minutes.

They were then treated to Steve hilariously singing _One Last Hope_ that the satyr, Phil, sang in the movie. They found themselves smiling and bouncing their heads along.

After that, Bucky showed Steve another. Steve listened to it and then leveled Bucky with an unimpressed look. “You want me to sing this.”

Bucky chirped the most cheerful “Yep” that either of them had heard in a while. If Sam didn’t know better, he would almost swear that the grin Bucky sported could have been labeled ‘shit-eating.’

“You want me to sing a girl’s song,” Steve said, eyeing Bucky flatly. “About being in love. With what sounded like _five_ backup singers. Where the parts overlap multiple times.”

He was treated to that same cheerful “Yep,” this time with an accompanied happy bounce.

“Buck.” Steve displayed a very impressive ‘I’m disappointed in you’ face. Natasha and Sam both tried and failed to hold back winces. Even if the look wasn’t aimed at them, it was powerful as hell. Bucky, however, was evidently immune to it, judging by his self-satisfied smirk.

“Setting aside that fact that it’s a girl’s song,” Steve said, “that is high enough that I probably couldn’t hit a third of the notes without my voice cracking, I can’t sing six parts at once. Or even two. Sorry, but that’s not happening.”

Bucky pulled out a pout that was just as impressive as Steve’s disappointment. And Steve was apparently just as unaffected as Bucky had been. He only raised his eyebrow in challenge.

“How about a different one?” Steve offered after a moment. “You remember when we watched _Fly Away Home_?” Bucky gave a distinct ‘I am not an idiot’ look so Steve didn’t wait for an answer, only shrugged. “I looked this up after. Mary Chapin Carpenter, _10,000 Miles_.”

He settled back into position, fingers gently caressing the keys a moment before starting.

The song was gorgeous and moving. The notes were delicate but powerful. The words were smooth, each one held as if they drifted off on a breeze. Words of distance and longing, of goodbye and hope for seeing someone again floated throughout the room.

More than ever before, it slammed home just how much both men had lost when they went off to war and somehow ended up in a new century. By the time the piano faded into silence, both Sam and Natasha were in tears.

There was an audibly wistful sigh from Bucky as he leaned against Steve’s side. It was spoken quietly, but both Sam and Natasha could clearly hear the grief in his voice when Bucky whispered, “I miss them.”

“I know. Me too.” Steve wrapped his arm around Bucky’s shoulders, tucking him in to give him a comforting squeeze. Before either Natasha or Sam could gather their wits enough to say or do anything, Steve stood and closed up the piano. “Come on, jerk. My stomach says that it’s past time to eat.”

The door softly clicked closed leaving them alone once more. They stirred enough to wipe the tears from their faces and sniffle wetly. “Jarvis,” Nat said after a slightly shaky breath. “Please don’t tell them we were in here.”

Her eyes met Sam’s and she saw his acceptance. What they’d just witnessed was beautiful and powerful, but should have been private. They made a silent pact to never speak of it to anyone.

They finished their sandwiches in melancholy silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <strike>I don't know if anyone will even be reading this, but if you're there, do you have any suggestions?</strike>   
  
<strike>I am trying to come up with sad songs that Bucky and Steve can listen to/be heard playing that would work for missing their sisters (who both died a couple years before they were found) but that could be mistaken by another for missing their lovers.</strike>   
  
<strike>I'm thinking their feelings would be a mixture of missing how things used to be, missing their sisters (their only family for most of their lives), and sadness for all the years they missed out on while frozen, as well as heartbreak at being found too little too late and not getting to even say goodbye.</strike>   
  
<strike>I would appreciate any suggestions you could give me.</strike>
> 
> Also, concrit is welcome. I am my own Beta so let me know if you see any mistakes in here.


	2. Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artistic license: Let's pretend that the video isn’t clear enough.
> 
> *****
> 
> -_Dust in the Wind_ – Kansas <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12DeNdF0KPA>
> 
> -_Sweet Child O’ Mine_ – Guns N’ Roses <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQeoePdK3fU>
> 
> -_Thunderstruck _– AC/DC <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu3HST4dNyQ>
> 
> -_The Sound of Silence_ – Simon & Garfunkel <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGLHadex0B0>

**2 – Tony**

*****

When Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes entered the music room again, Jarvis actively started paying closer attention. The last time they were in there was quite enjoyable, even if he couldn’t appreciate it in quite the same way humans did. Captain Rogers was an accomplished pianist, especially considering he didn’t appear to have much, if any, formal training.

The Captain and Sergeant worked together to set up the piano before sitting down side by side on the bench. Jarvis had access to all the phones on his network so he automatically registered them looking up a specific YouTube video.

Jarvis knew Mr. Stark’s style of music well. He kept track of all his playlists and was asked to play them often, usually while Mr. Stark was working in his lab. Quite a few of them contained songs from the 1970s and 1980s. The song the two soldiers were watching with the obvious intent to play was one that was included on multiple playlists Jarvis had put together.

It had been quite a while since Mr. Stark had left his lab and Jarvis had finally convinced him to save his work and get something to eat. Hopefully sleep would follow. Mr. Stark was currently in the kitchen searching for adequate food.

Jarvis would never admit to meddling but, as Captain Rogers started playing, he subtly filtered the sound into the kitchen. It was quiet enough that, once it registered, Mr. Stark would most likely assume that the music had drifted to him from down the hall, not that it was purposefully filtered to him by Jarvis through a judicious use of speakers. It was a plausible explanation, seeing as neither the Captain nor the Sergeant had bothered to shut the music room door. Jarvis figured that that was as good as an invitation for anyone close enough to listen.

And if Mr. Stark just happened to get distracted by them and forget about his usual attempt to head straight back to his lab instead of getting some much-needed sleep, than all the better.

*****

Tony perked up when he heard a familiar sound emanating from somewhere down the hall. It took his tired brain a minute or so to catch up, but he eventually recognized the song.

He wondered who was listening to the track and where they’d found it. Two voices perfectly balanced a mix of melody and harmony to make a slightly haunting cover of Kansas’s _Dust in the Wind_.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard it on the piano before. Not like that anyway. It was a little slow, a little chilling, and a little sad. They were so well blended that, when the two parts sang the same note, they could almost be mistaken for a single voice. Tony was definitely intrigued. He had to find out who'd made the track.

He debated leaving his food where it was. He looked back and forth between the doorway and the microwave, unable to decide. He was hungry but there were two whole minutes left on the microwave. And the song was practically over. It stood to reason, though, that if someone was listening to it, then that someone would know who the artist was or how to find the song again.

As the song ended, he decided to wait for his food.

He finally removed it from the microwave and gathered the appropriate utensils and a paper towel before he went searching. He eventually deduced that the music had come from the music room. Because of course it had. He should’ve checked there first.

Tony was half a dozen steps away from the door before he realized just who was in there.

“You think you’ve got it? It seems like a hard one. Need to watch it again?” Bucky asked.

“Nah,” Steve replied. “Once was enough.”

Tony was about to stroll in like he owned the place—because, well, he did—when Steve placed his hands on Tony’s very expensive piano. Before he could open his mouth, however, Steve let rip an unmistakable song.

Tony was so surprised, not only from the song choice but from the fact that it was _Steve Rogers_, a card-carrying member of the Old Man’s Naptime Club, playing it, that he stopped dead in his tracks.

There was no way. No way in hell Steve could just belt out _Sweet Child O’ Mine_ like a pro, like it was nothing. Guns N’ Roses was definitely not nothing.

When Steve got to the solo guitar riff, he absolutely killed it. Tony forgot all about the food in his hands and what he’d been doing, where he’d been going. He just stood there and stared, listening. Tony couldn’t hear any mistakes in it. It was as phenomenal as it was mind-boggling.

By the time he shook himself out of the trance-like shock, Bucky had started up another video. Tony couldn’t hear what it was but less than a minute in, Steve shook his head and hit pause.

“That one’s going to be harder,” he said. “I can’t hear it well enough to catch everything.”

“Excuse me, Captain Rogers, but I can play it over the speakers so you can hear it better if you wish.”

When the wordless piano music started coming through, Tony’s eyes widened and he took an involuntary step back. _Thunderstruck_? The Great and Mighty Capsicle was going to attempt AC/DC’s _Thunderstruck_ without ever having heard the song before?

Was he dreaming? There was no way. He couldn’t possibly…

Except, Steve sat on the piano bench next to Bucky with his head cocked, listening intently. Both of them were relaxed; Tony could see it in the easy lines of their backs. Bucky casually slumped against Steve’s shoulder. His head bobbed along with the beat but he didn’t make a sound.

When the track finished, Bucky excitedly straightened up with a blinding smile. “Yeah?” he questioned.

“Oh, yeah. This is going to be fun. Are there words to these? There should be words to these.”

Bucky promised they’d watch the original performances later that evening and, seconds later, Steve began.

Tony couldn’t help but be—ha—thunderstruck. Again, he couldn’t detect a single flaw. And he would have been able to tell. He listened to Guns N’ Roses and AC/DC a lot.

The fact that Steve was able to play the songs after only hearing them once… If Tony wasn’t seeing it with his very own tired eyes, he would have a hard time believing it was true. In fact, maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe he was hallucinating, caused by sleep-deprivation from too many hours in the lab lately. 

By the time the formerly frozen duo were discussing the next song, Tony was clutching his completely forgotten bowl of food to his chest as it slowly cooled. Bucky talked to Steve about Simon & Garfunkel’s _The Sound of Silence_, which Steve had apparently heard previously. “I bet it would sound great on a ukulele,” Bucky said as he leaned over to look around the edge of the piano, presumably in search of one.

Tony wasn’t exactly sure why, but he instinctively stepped far enough to the side that he couldn’t be seen when the rest of the room got scanned.

“I heard Natasha call this the music room,” Tony heard Steve say. “So if you don’t see one here, then I doubt there’s one handy. You were always much better at the uke anyway.”

“You weren’t so bad. You were just always better with an upright.”

Upright? It took Tony a few seconds to figure out that he meant one of those old-ass box-looking pianos.

With a shake of his head, he turned away to head to his floor, finally remembering the food in his hands and his empty stomach. Tony's thoughts swirled around everything he’d just heard, both the amazing piano playing and the possible need for a ukulele.

He knew next to nothing about pianos. He knew even less about ukuleles. Maybe he’d see if Jarvis could suss out exactly what was needed. Tony had the vaguest idea that ukuleles were like tiny, high-pitched guitars. There were probably different kinds. There was probably a right or wrong kind for the Wonder Twins.

Maybe he’d think on it.

As he neared the elevator, he heard the perfectly balanced voices that had drawn him to the music room in the first place. _The Sound of Silence_ echoed beautifully, if a bit mournfully, down the hall. Tony finally realized that it had been _Bucky fucking Barnes_ and _Steve goddamned Rogers_ he’d heard singing from the kitchen.

Yes. He had a lot to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <strike>I'm still looking for sad songs if anyone knows any. Thanks so much. </strike>
> 
> And thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy!


	3. Bruce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -_Can’t Help Falling in Love_ – Elvis Presley <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGJTaP6anOU>
> 
> -_La Vie En Rose_ – Edith Piaf and Louis Guglielmi
> 
> Ukulele Cover in English – Rachel Clay: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j52x5L4aZ8>
> 
> The original: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzeLynj1GYM>
> 
> -_The Rose_ – Bette Midler <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxSTzSEiZ2c>

**3 – Bruce**

*****

Bruce was currently taking a break from his lab. Work that day had been getting frustrating and stressful so he was taking some time to himself to avoid an inadvertent Hulk-out. He sat in the library on the common floor drinking peppermint tea and trying to de-stress.

When he’d moved in, he’d been surprised that Tony even had hard copy books, much less a whole library of them. A small part of him thought it was because, even though Tony pretended not to, he actually did understand that not everyone was or wanted to be as technologically advanced as he was.

Steve and Bucky in particular, Bruce knew, spent a lot of time in the library looking for books to borrow.

The room had a lot of comfortable seating and the smell of books, both old and new, permeated the air. It was why Bruce had chosen there to sit and try to relax when he'd started to get overwhelmed.

He shut his eyes and practiced his breathing exercises. Sitting out of view of the door, Bruce heard footsteps coming nearer.

He had really good hearing. It wasn’t something he advertised or pointed out to anyone. He already had a huge mark against him with the Hulk who, more often than not, destroyed whatever happened to be around at the time. He didn’t need people being wary around his human half too—or, more accurately, _more_ wary.

Logically, he knew that none of the Avengers treated Steve any differently because of his serum-enhanced senses, but that didn’t stop Bruce from being cautious about letting anyone know that his hearing, which had been pretty good to start with, had gotten slightly better after his…accident.

One set of footsteps stopped while the other continued on for a few more paces.

“Buck?”

Ah. So it was Steve and Bucky outside the library. Bruce briefly wondered why they’d stopped but he didn’t have to wait long before he found out.

“Stevie. There’s a ukulele in here.” Bucky sounded surprised. He must be looking in the music room directly across the hall from the library.

Bruce would’ve been surprised, too, if he’d noticed a ukulele. Mostly because he didn’t think anyone could play one.

He had no clue why Tony had bought a piano in the first place, only to put it in a room that few people ever went in. Never once in the time he’d lived in the Tower had he heard the piano being played. He wasn’t sure why there was now another instrument in there that no one would touch. But then, Bruce didn’t understand why Tony did half the things he did.

He was suddenly broken out of his thoughts. “Aw, Buck, you know you were much better than I ever was. I could never get the fingers right.” For once, Steve didn’t sound self-deprecating; he sounded a little embarrassed. He wasn’t sure what Steve had to be embarrassed about, but he’d lost track of the conversation. Bruce thought that maybe they were still talking a bout the ukulele. Could one of them play it? He thought they both had grown up in an orphanage. Would either of them know how to play a musical instrument? Were ukuleles even invented back then? He thought they’d been popular back in the ’50s. Or maybe it was the ’60s.

“I can’t,” Bucky said matter-of-factly, pulling Bruce from his roaming thoughts once again.

“Think you could do it upside-down?” Steve asked.

Bruce’s face scrunched up at that. Do what upside down? If they were still talking about the ukulele, did that mean flipping it over? He couldn’t think of anything else it could possibly refer to, unless they weren’t talking about the instrument at all.

The visual that popped into his head, of Steve holding Bucky upside down, was ridiculous and almost made him huff out a small breath of laughter.

“Everything would be backwards then,” Bucky replied.

“Just try it. I’ll even strum for you.”

They had to still be talking about the ukulele. To Bruce’s knowledge, there was nothing else in the room that could be strummed. So, apparently Bucky did know how to play. Bruce imagined that only having his right arm put a real damper on that particular ability.

He sipped his tea, closed his eyes, and waited.

He didn’t know much about music. Focused more on science all of his life, he’d only ever listened to it, and, even then, it was sporadic. As long as he stayed away from angry-sounding pieces, he enjoyed some classical composers such as Mozart, Bach, and Vivaldi. He also had a nostalgic love of America’s 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s songs. When he was in India, he would occasionally stop and listen to Hindustani music if it was being played in his vicinity.

While he couldn’t read sheet music or play an instrument, he could appreciate the talent in others.

To his surprise, a quiet sound soon reached his ears. It seemed that Bucky was giving it a try.

It was slow going. Each strum was one simple downward motion and each note took a while before the next was played. Bruce imagined that having to use the right hand instead of the left would make it extremely difficult. Not to mention holding the instrument secure against his body.

When the singing started, halting each time to slowly switch to the next chord, Bruce couldn’t help but smile. He wasn’t sure exactly which one of them was singing, but whoever it was had a nice voice. He assumed it was Bucky but wasn’t positive. It did help him identify the song, however: _Can't Help Falling in Love_ by Elvis Presley.

A displaced soldier from the 1940s was singing a love song by a 1960s American heartthrob. He would’ve chuckled at that if it wouldn’t have drowned out the music. As it was, he only smiled and shook his head.

Before long, it was over. He heard Steve tell Bucky that they had to find a better way for him to strum. “It’s too awkward facing you. I feel like I’m going to accidentally put my hand through the thing.”

Bruce could hear shuffling noises but wasn’t exactly sure what they were doing. It didn’t really matter, though, because within a minute, they started up another song.

It was a little less hesitant than the first. It was also in French. He wasn’t sure who originally sang it, but based on the single verse that Bucky sang in mostly English, Bruce would guess that it was titled something to do with a rose. _La Vie en Rose_, maybe? He wasn’t sure. He’d never heard it before and he didn’t speak French. Whatever it was, it was beautiful.

Mostly forgetting about his tea, Bruce tilted his head back on his chair and just let the music wash over him. It was unexpected, but it seemed to be doing a better job than the hot drink of de-stressing him. His shoulders slowly dropped as the tension faded away. By the time the French song was over, a content smile graced his face.

He figured he’d take another minute or two before heading back to the labs.

The third song they played on the ukulele was one Bruce did recognize. He’d always had a fondness for Bette Midler. She’d been his mom’s favorite artist. As he listened to _The Rose_, he relaxed more than he had in the past two weeks.

Apparently both Captain America and his Sergeant could sing, and, wow, their voices harmonized beautifully. If the public ever found that out, they would go nuts.

Bucky had started out singing the first verse, smooth and clear. Steve joined in, harmonizing on the second and third. Steve used a simple strum that paired well with the romance of a song about different kinds of love.

Bruce finished off his tea and stood up to leave just as they were about to play the last few notes.

From the library doorway, Bruce saw Bucky sitting on the floor in the middle of the music room. Steve was pressed up close in the space where Bucky’s left arm should have been. They both sat on a large rectangular cushion, no doubt taken off one of the couches. Steve's right leg bent at the knee behind Bucky’s back and the other was stretched out past his left hip. He also had his chin hooked over Bucky’s shoulder in order to see what he was doing and reach the ukulele to hold it in place and strum.

The thought strayed into Bruce's mind that the position did seem less awkward for an enhanced person trying to be gentle while strumming than sitting face to face would have been—as long as they didn’t mind being up close, that was.

Shaking the thought loose, Bruce stepped into the elevator. A new song started up but, before he could identify it, the elevator closed and headed downwards. Stepping out, he set the wondering aside and focused his mind back on his work. He had the rest of the day to get through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted a comment on the last chapter about the history of ukuleles and a little on Bucky and Steve’s musical history. If you are interested, you can go back to chapter 2 and read it. 
> 
> I also want to thank everyone who gave my fic a chance. And those who offered kudos, comments, and song suggestions (which helped a lot). You've all made me ridiculously happy. I honestly didn't expect anyone to think it was all that good, so thank you.
> 
> **[Edit 8-29-19]** Side note: I want to thank everyone who helped me out with sad song suggestions. I am no longer needing these, but if anyone ever wants to send me more songs (of anything), I will appreciate each and every one of them forever. I will [do my best to remember to] send you virtual cookies. 
> 
> These songs won't be used in my fic (and might not be used in any of them), but I love music. I'm pretty sure that at least half of my music knowledge is a direct result of someone else introducing me to songs. The other half is a mix of these songs leading me into a YouTube spiral where I discover other stuff I love, songs I grew up with, movies, and the radio. 
> 
> I have a very eclectic taste and will listen to anything at least once. It doesn't even have to be from a specific era or country. 
> 
> I've listened to everything from 1920s swing and jazz, to '80s rock and roll, to Gaelic/Irish/Scottish love and comedic songs, to Italian folk music, to some Japanese I-don't-even-know-what-it's-called, to literal rain and thunderstorms behind classical music. And chanting. I have some chanting in an unknown language, too. Well-composed movie scores are a particular favorite of mine, even if I don't own many and wish I could get more.
> 
> I've learned how to play some John Denver as well as It's a Small World After All, On Top of Spaghetti, and The Little Mermaid's Kiss the Girl on my uke. So when I say anything, I mean _anything_.


	4. Clint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t specify every song in this chapter. I only name about half of them. To get the full experience, I suggest listening to the songs as you read. (The links are listed in the order used. I always say when the song changes.) I feel there’s more emotional depth to everything if you follow along during reading instead of just scanning through the titles or listening to them before you start. Also, a couple of the links are not just any old lyric/music video but specific versions of the songs.
> 
> Oh, and a possible trigger warning for crying and feels. And loss of loved ones is discussed. I know I already tagged it but I felt it was worth mentioning again. Tissues _were_ dampened in the making of this chapter.
> 
> *****
> 
> -_Who Wants to Live Forever_ – Queen (cover by vkgoeswild) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InbDWywMbfM>
> 
> And if you want to hear it on a grand piano (cover by vkgoeswild) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA2peuLNMjY>
> 
> -_Talking To the Moon_ – Bruno Mars <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x94m407UJSI>
> 
> -_I'll Be Seeing You_ – Jo Stafford <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvq4OnhMEO4>
> 
> -_Jealous_ – Labrinth (Josh Daniel’s audition on X Factor UK, 2015) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_iiSIn4OI>
> 
> -_If Heaven Was Needing A Hero_ – Jo Dee Messina <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5eFPivMTDE>
> 
> -_You Will Never Be Forgotten_ \- Jessica Andrews <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9g35fMP8u0>
> 
> -_See You Again_ – Carrie Underwood <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTnWFT3DvVA>
> 
> -_Holes in the Floor of Heaven_ – Steve Wariner <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK3H5cHfgzw>

**4 – Clint **

*****

Clint couldn’t sleep.

He’d just gotten back from a mission around midnight and it was too quiet. There were no traffic noises, no annoying lights shining in his bedroom window from lampposts out on the street, no neighbor’s footsteps echoing on the ceiling or flush of a toilet on the other side of thin apartment walls at what-the-fuck-o’clock.

He’d been too tired to think about going home to his crappy little apartment in Bed-Stuy. But, now, there he was lying in his very comfortable bed in his designated Tower apartment. And he was tired, yet, still very much awake.

He remembered, on a mission once, some fresh-faced kid complaining to him that they were too tired to sleep. He was starting to understand that they hadn’t just been making up bullshit excuses. If he ever remembered which kid it had been, maybe he’d think about someday apologizing.

Because this truly sucked.

With a deep sigh, Clint sat up, letting the soft blanket fall down his chest to pool at his hips. Jarvis kindly lifted the lights just enough to see by but not be blinded. He looked around, trying to come up with something that could help.

He’d heard people talk about drinking warm milk when they couldn’t sleep but, honestly, that sounded disgusting. He didn’t even like _cold_ milk.

Hot chocolate did sound better but he didn’t have any. He’d made Darcy cry, once, when he’d brought out a tin of that powdered mix for her. He’d gone back later, only to find the whole container gone. He hadn’t bothered to get more. Knowing Darcy, he doubted that there’d be any in the kitchen on the common floor if he bothered go to check. He would probably just find some sort of fancy chocolate bars or some such shit.

Some people were raised on the fake crap and liked it just fine.

He could probably find a stash of Natasha’s vodka but he didn’t really feel like nursing a sprained or broken wrist after a ‘sparring session’ just for a few stolen chugs. And waking her up to ask permission—for anything short of an emergency, really—was just as risky.

Giving up for the moment, Clint tiredly rolled out of bed. He scratched his stomach and took the opportunity to piss. That done, he decided a change of scenery might be what he needed. Perhaps something smaller, like his vents.

Tony was a good bro. During the Tower’s remodel following the Chitauri attack, he’d set up whole apartment _floors_ for everyone. Clint had been surprised to discover that Tony had some awesome ventilation ducts installed on Clint’s level. There was even a little dumbwaiter connecting his vents to equally nice ones on the common floor.

He went over to the just-barely-human-sized metal grate cleverly hidden in his living room wall and effortlessly slid in.

Unlike the ducts on his floor, where they became roomier after a dozen or so practiced body wiggles, the air vents on everyone else’s levels were too tiny for a person to fit in. But that didn’t matter to Clint. He may not care much about his own privacy, growing up in a circus as he had, but he did value his friends’ right to it. He felt no need to spy on them or their personal spaces. Vents were tools, sure, but in the Tower, they were more safe spaces than hidey-holes used to spy on others.

Clint, being Clint, had outfitted several nooks and crannies in the maze-like ducts with creature comforts. That was where he decided to head to try and sleep. Each spot—all six of them—had soft blankets, fluffy pillows, extra-cozy socks, candy, and other snacks tucked away, everything he could possibly need to be warm and safe and close.

There were cold drinks there, too.

Tony had somehow discovered that Clint had set up nests. One day, tiny mini-fridges filled with an assortment of tasty drinks had appeared in each spot. They were purple, covered in bird stickers, and ridiculously cute. Clint loved them. He figured Jarvis and a few of Tony’s robots had helped place them. He couldn’t exactly picture Tony crawling through the ducts to do it himself.

Then again, maybe Bucky had done it. Shortly after Clint had set up his nests, he’d gone to one of them on the common floor to take a nap and found a beautifully handwritten note taped to the wall.

_‘Hello. Whose is this? It’s neat. May I come visit sometimes? Sincerely, Bucky Barnes’_

Clint couldn’t lie: it had been kind of cute. Who left people handwritten notes anymore? And who wrote said notes like it was the calligraphy championship and they _really_ wanted to win? Then again, if he remembered right, the man had been raised by nuns in the 1920s. So maybe it wasn’t such a surprise.

It had taken him a while to even _find_ a pen and paper but he’d left his reply hanging below.

_‘You may use my 3 nests. Please replace anything you use or take. Dumbwaiter leads to vents on my floor. Please stay out of those.’_

He’d gotten a kick out of signing his whole name. And just for the hell of it, underneath it all, he’d drawn a crappy little hawk perched on top of a simple longbow and nocked arrow.

Smiling at the thought of the notes, Clint finished bellying his way into one of the enlarged cubby areas in the common-floor air ducts. He’d chosen the nest closest to the kitchen because, if someone woke up and just happened to decide to make food, Clint could be there in seconds, ready and willing to help them eat it.

So he could be a selfish asshole. He was okay with that.

He was halfway to dozing amid his many blankets when his hearing aids picked up what almost sounded like piano music. It swung back and forth between hauntingly sad and almost angry. There were quiet parts throughout where he didn’t hear anything so it took nearly five minutes for him to realize that he wasn’t just imagining things.

Some of that time he’d spent messing with his aids, halfway convinced that there wasn’t actually any music, like the times he thought he’d heard his name being called but no one had said anything.

Clint glanced at the digital clock that appeared the week before: about a quarter after three. Someone else wasn’t getting a good night’s sleep either.

Curiosity had him deciding to follow the sound. On a whim, he backtracked and grabbed his favorite blanket to take along with him. He loved the soft purple one with bumpy, near-invisible polka-dots on it. It was calming to just run his fingers over the soft textured bumps.

On his way again, he listened carefully.

Sound tended to echo oddly off the walls of metal air ducts so it took him a couple minutes to pin down exactly where the music came from. By the time he reached the correct room, one lit with nothing but silver moonlight and sound, whoever-it-was was in the middle of a second song. It was something about sitting alone and talking to the moon hoping that somebody was talking back.

Pretty appropriate if you asked Clint.

He couldn’t tell who the singer was though. The vent was at the wrong angle to see and he’d never before heard anyone on his team sing or play a piano. He hadn’t even known the Tower _had_ a piano, much less that anyone could play it. Especially not like that. It was so emotional. Whoever he was, it almost sounded like he physically hurt.

And it was definitely a he. The voice was too deep to belong to any of the women.

He couldn’t imagine it being Tony. Tony would just have Jarvis blare loud thumping music over his lab speakers while he worked until the feeling was buried or forgotten. Or he’d drink and mope alone.

Bruce… Clint actually _could_ picture Bruce playing a piano and singing. What didn’t fit was the amount of emotion, the amount of _pain_, in the voice. Bruce was so levelheaded and calm—he had to be, to prevent unwanted Hulk-outs. That much emotion bleeding through probably wouldn’t be good for anyone, much less for Bruce.

Clint was pretty sure Sam was out of town. Visiting family, maybe? He couldn’t remember.

And he doubted that Thor would know what to do with a piano. A lute, maybe. A lyre? What the hell was the difference? Not that it mattered. Thor had just always struck him with more of a renaissance-faire vibe. He was pretty sure no one carted a piano along to a renaissance faire.

So that left Clint with only two possibilities.

The next song was an old-timey one with a fairly simple tune. The voice sang about seeing the memory of someone everywhere they went. With a song like that, Clint thought the piano player _had_ to be either Bucky or Steve. Whichever man it was, they had a decent voice. It was deep with a nice tone, even if it was a bit wobbly. But that could be attributed to the fact that it was after three in the morning. Or to the song itself; it sounded sad.

The song changed again and it was to one that Clint actually recognized…kind of. It didn’t appear to be the whole song, but he did recognize it. _Jealous_ by Labrinth.

He thought he knew, now, who was in the shadowed room, at least. Even if Bucky could play the piano, Clint doubted he could play all those songs that skillfully with only his one hand. Clint’s guess was proven correct a couple minutes later when Bucky appeared in the doorway.

That settled it firmly at Steve being the one with the amazing piano skills and voice. And the crushing heartbreak.

Clint watched as Bucky stood there and listened to the next song. By the chorus, he realized that Bucky had gone from worried to sad—or maybe _destroyed_ was a better word.

Moonlight reflected off the tears in Bucky’s eyes and the wet tracks down his face. Clint felt helpless to do anything but tear up too.

Apparently it wasn’t just Steve’s heartbreak.

He watched as Bucky placed his trembling hand over his eyes and bowed his head. Shallow breaths silently shuttered in his chest. It took a little bit but, once they evened out, Bucky swiped at the moisture, straightened his spine, leveled his chin, and stood tall.

In the face of that immense courage—and there was no other word to for it—Clint did his best to give the respect it deserved. He wasn’t a good enough person to turn around and leave Steve and Bucky alone with their anguish, but he didn’t have to watch as they broke down. He gave Bucky as much privacy as his curiosity would allow: he looked away.

Instead, he stared at the vent’s wall and focused on what Steve sang. Each word, each note, was broken-hearted and painful. They made Clint’s watery eyes begin to spill over. The song was about a loved one who’d died because heaven needed a hero.

Clint had read their files before the Chitauri invasion, even if he wasn’t actually supposed to. It had given him something concrete to focus on as his brain finished coming out of the mind-fuckery Loki had subjected it to.

He knew that, to both men, it was as if nearly every person they’d ever known had died in a single instant. They were told in the next breath—most likely in a tone that was devoid of any real emotion—that their sweethearts had legally married them after they went missing and that both were now dead as well.

Clint finally realized exactly what—or who—the songs were about and his heart broke for them.

He silently dug his face into his blanket and listened to the gut-wrenching music as he struggled not to cry. He failed miserably, but in the face of two displaced soldiers’ grief, he couldn’t bring himself to care all that much.

*****

From the doorway, Bucky wiped the freshly-fallen tears from his face.

He’d woken up to an empty bed and silent apartment.

It had worried him. Of the two of them, Bucky was the one with the greater tendency to get up and wander at night. He’d discovered some neat out-of-the way places during those wanderings. Steve, however, usually just pushed their recliner over to the window to sit and look down at Manhattan. He’d quietly draw, bathed in shadows, or just stare out lost in his thoughts.

He rarely left the apartment at night so, when Bucky couldn’t find him, he’d gone looking.

The bed had still held the barest hint of warmth from the furnace Steve liked to call a body so he knew he wasn’t too far behind, probably only ten or fifteen minutes, tops.

The common floor was the first place he’d checked and the second the elevator doors had opened, it was obvious where Steve had ended up. Bucky heard the faint music, if not what was actually being played. Before he’d even reached the door, however, he knew. Recognition settled deep in his bones even though he’d never heard Steve play the song before.

His heart squeezed painfully in his chest.

It’d been a while since either of them had felt down enough to play songs from that particular playlist. The last time either of them had needed to, they hadn’t yet known about the music room. In retrospect, it wasn’t all that surprising that Steve had ended up in front of the piano.

He began to play and sing the next song, _You Will Never Be Forgotten_ by Jessica Andrews, and Bucky had a thought.

Straightening, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and silently texted a request to Jarvis. He looked up the two songs he’d recently heard that weren’t yet on the Missing Them playlist. He asked Jarvis to play them when he gave the word.

Sliding his phone back away, Bucky walked over to sit beside the man who had been his best friend since the moment they met and who was his husband in every way that mattered.

So focused on the music, he wasn’t sure that Steve even registered Bucky settling down beside him. It wasn’t until the song ended and Steve slumped against his side that Bucky knew for sure.

“Nightmares?” he asked, on the off-chance that he was wrong. Bucky’s voice seemed overloud in the sudden ringing silence.

Steve shook his head and sniffed. He looked exhausted, wrung out. He didn’t even bother wasting energy wiping away the tears that fell from his red-rimmed eyes. They just rolled past his jaw to drip heavily down onto the baggy black hoodie he must’ve stolen from Bucky at some point in the past few days.

Bucky wrapped his arm around Steve’s shoulders and waited patiently.

“Memories,” Steve finally said. His voice sounded like it had been dragged down a gravel road littered with broken glass. The rawness of it echoed almost painfully off the walls.

Steve didn’t need to say any more for Bucky to understand exactly what he meant.

They had both missed out on so much. They’d saved thousands, possibly even millions, of people by bringing down the Valkyrie. But they’d sacrificed their sisters, their only family, to do so.

Stephanie had only been seventeen, and Becca twenty-one, the last time Bucky had seen them face to face; the last time he’d hugged them tight. They’d just barely been eighteen and twenty-two the last time Steve saw them. 

Neither he nor Steve had ever thought they’d outlive the girls. Up until Steve had received the serum, he’d spent most of his life three steps and a sniffle from a pine box in the ground. And, once Bucky had been drafted, he hadn’t expected to survive for long either. He’d been captured and thought that was how he was going to end, that his ticket was punched.

Than a miraculously-healthy Steve had shown up and pulled him out. Bucky figured they’d only postponed their deaths a couple of months, maybe a little longer.

They didn’t actively think about it, but fighting side by side against terrifying weapons that turned people into ash, neither of them had really expected to make it home.

Of course the girls would outlive the both of them. They were healthy and safe. No one was shooting at them, trying to kill them, on a daily basis.

In a way, they’d been right. Neither Steve nor Bucky had ever made it home. They were suddenly thrust more than sixty-five years into the future to live in an almost unbelievable world. A world that world no longer contained their sisters.

Becks and Steph had lived a long life, but most of that life had been without Bucky and Steve in it.

They hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye. Not when they brought the plane down and not after they’d woken up.

At that thought, Bucky’s lip quavered and his eyes filled again. He gave Jarvis the go-ahead before he could no longer get anything past the lump in his throat.

Bucky tightened his arm around Steve’s shoulders as Carrie Underwood came through the speakers singing _See You Again_. It filled the room as she sung about old memories and someday seeing loved ones again.

Steve’s tears started up again in earnest and he pressed his trembling lips together in an effort to not let the whimpers escape. His shoulders shuddered with them anyway.

_Holes in the Floor of Heaven_ played, and Steve could no longer hold back. His head dropped into his sweatshirt-covered hands and he shook with hard, body-wrenching sobs.

Bucky clumsily stood up and got behind Steve. With his arm wrapped around Steve’s hips, Bucky bodily dragged him to the back edge of the piano bench. He had to brace his knees against the creaking thing and he almost couldn’t gather the proper strength for it, crying messily as he was, but he somehow managed.

He cleared enough room in front of Steve and stumbled his way back around the offensively long and _completely-in-the-way_ piece of furniture. He gracelessly dropped down to straddle Steve’s hips and did his best to give as much of a full-body hug as he could.

At that moment, more than ever before, Bucky wished he still had both of his arms. He could’ve carded his fingers through Steve’s hair while his other hand rubbed up and down his back to soothe. Instead, he had to settle for wrapping a single arm around Steve’s shoulders and holding tight. His heart hurt with the need he couldn’t fulfill.

Steve immediately planted his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck, his arms tightly snaking around his waist. They sat there, just barely swaying back and forth, as their weeping filled the room.

Speaking past the hard lump of his grief and tears in his chest and the tightness in his throat, Bucky whispered words of love to Steve, choosing Irish in the hopes that one of their native languages would be a comfort to him. He promised Steve that he wasn’t alone, that Bucky felt exactly the same. He told him that Bucky missed them every single day, too. Not knowing what else to say, he repeated it all in Romanian.

Eventually, long after the song was over, when they were both down to sniffles, Bucky leaned back and carefully wiped the tears from Steve’s face. He didn’t bother with his own, just pressed a salty kiss to his forehead, his cheek, and lastly his temple, before settling back into a hug.

Steve tiredly pressed his face against Bucky’s damp neck again.

While he talked Bucky did what he’d yearned to do before. He carded his fingers slowly through Steve’s hair. “We’ll go see them today. In a few hours, the sun’ll be up. I know where they’re buried; we’ll go visit them and apologize for being late to our weddings.”

That earned him a pathetically sad, wet noise that could optimistically be called a chuckle if you were insane.

“Flowers?” Steve asked. His voice still hitched slightly, breaking the word up into odd syllables. He followed it up with a loud, wet sniff. The noise sounded strangely hallow, first echoing off the space between their chests and then the walls.

“Yeah. Yeah, Stevie, that’s a good idea. Got to have flowers for a proper apology.” He smoothed Steve’s hair down before scraping his nails through it backwards, from the neck up.

“Two,” Steve said and Bucky could hear the stubbornness start to overtake the despair. He smiled at it. Always trust in his Stevie’s stubbornness; it’ll outlast everything.

“You’re right, of course. Definitely two sets. One for each. Steph’ll be angry. She always did have your spitfire temper. She’ll say we took our sweet damn time, but she’ll smile in the end. We all know I take forever to do my hair. It takes hard work to look this good. I don’t have any pomade anymore.” Distracted with that tangent, he paused, eyebrows drawing down. “I don’t know if they even _make_ pomade anymore.”

That definitely got snort out of Steve.

Bucky shook his head and got back on track. “Becks’ll just laugh and say ‘boys’ll be boys’ in that way of hers. Then she’ll whack us both over the head with her book for being stupid and go back to reading whatever we’ve been so rude as to interrupt. Make us suffer by ignoring us until she’s finished with her chapter. She’ll make us wait until she’s good and ready.”

“Took a really long time,” Steve said and his voice was lighter. He wiped his tears and snotty nose against Bucky’s shoulder because he was an ass. Bucky could feel the small smile stretch across Steve’s lips where they rested against him, though, so he didn’t complain.

“Bet she’ll make us wait until she finishes the whole book. And then we’ll have to _grovel_,” Steve said after he’d mucked up Bucky’s shirt.

“Ah,” Bucky sighed dramatically. “There’s that positive attitude of yours, Rogers! Wondered where it’d gone off to.” Steve nearly shoved him off his lap for that. It caused Bucky to squeak in surprise. His sudden flailing almost finished the job.

Judging by his expression, Steve surprised himself when he laughed. It was still raw and painful sounding, but it was real.

To avoid any more mishaps where he ended up with his ass on the ground, Bucky got to his feet. “Come on, punk. We’d better go back and get a few more hours of sleep. Want to look our best. We’ve got some flowers to buy and wives to visit.”

Drained from the deeply emotional night, Steve gingerly stood up. Bucky thought that, more than ever before, he resembled the old man that the others sometimes teased them about being. Bucky headed for the door but Steve took the time to close up the piano.

When they reached the hall, Bucky slung his arm around Steve’s neck, much like he used to do when Steve was smaller. Jarvis had the elevator door open and ready to dump them back at their apartment. Bucky sent a silent glance upward in thanks, hoping the A.I. understood.

Bucky doubted that he would get any more sleep that night, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying to ensure that Steve did. Sliding under the covers beside the love of his life, he gathered Steve close and waited for the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I made you cry, I'm...somewhat sorry. (You are not alone. I cried too.)
> 
> For an added bonus, this song would have been next up on the Missing Them playlist but Steve decided, instead, to stop and lean against Bucky.
> 
> _From Where You Are_ by Lifehouse. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tu-IGnL10c>


	5. Pepper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **[Edited: 3-11-2020] A note was added about Chapter 6 at the very end of this chapter. Please go read if you're interested in an update about the next installment of this story.**
> 
> -_Heyat Davam Edir_ – Huseyn Abdullayev <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsoHKI5ZqHg>
> 
> -_I Just Called to Say I Love You_ – Stevie Wonder <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bGOgY1CmiU>
> 
> -_Somebody to Love_ – Queen <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kijpcUv-b8M>
> 
> piano version (cover by vkgoeswild) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYrlrMtAB3M>
> 
> -_Human_ – Rag'n'Bone Man <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3wKzyIN1yk>
> 
> -_More than Words_ – Extreme <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrIiLvg58SY>

**5 – Pepper**

*****

Being the CEO of Stark Industries meant that Pepper Potts usually had very little free time on her hands. It sometimes felt like she was ‘on’ twenty-four/seven. When she wasn’t running the company or going to meetings for SI, she dealt with Tony. She also managed his PR.

After New York’s alien invasion, however, heading up the Iron Man PR had turned into taking care of the PR for _all_ of the Avengers. And she was okay with that. She enjoyed the challenge, even. But sometimes she wished that she knew some of them better.

There was Tony, of course. He and Pepper had known each other since she began working as his PA twelve years before. They’d been together for somewhere around five years, now, even if Tony didn’t quite know it.

There was just something about spending years organizing a man’s life well enough to basically keep him alive and then sticking her hand inside his chest to _literally_ keep him alive that brought their relationship to a whole new level. Even if they hadn’t started actively going together until after that, she reserved the right to claim otherwise.

Then there was Nat. Pepper got along well with Natasha. They’d begun a tentative friendship when Pepper first met her as Natalie Rushman. Then she found out that her name wasn’t actually Natalie, that she wasn’t actually from SI’s legal department, and oh, by the way, she was the _motherfucking Black Widow_ sent undercover to determine if Tony should be recommended for the Avengers Initiative.

There had been a bump of mistrust after all that. How was she supposed to trust someone who’d lied to her from the very beginning? But after a long, intense talk, they’d come to an understanding. Pepper had come to terms with how they’d met and they’d formed a solid friendship.

She sometimes thought that it was a relief for Natasha to have someone know her and still like her for who she was, not for who or what she pretended to be to get a job done. She was able to let her hair down, so to speak, because she had friends who cared about her for more than just what she could accomplish for them. Natasha was able to be more than what her job or her past—faked or otherwise—dictated.

Through Nat, Pepper had gotten to know Clint. One day, the two women had gotten together to do their nails and Clint had just tagged along like a gangly puppy. He was surprisingly good at girl-talk. And at nail painting. And he knew a ton about makeup.

By the third time he’d dropped or spilled something and had gotten that sad look on his face, that how-could-you-betray-me-nail-polish look, Pepper had wanted to both laugh until her stomach hurt and gather him up into a hug. The price of having her and Tony’s carpet professionally cleaned afterwards had been well worth becoming friends.

She’d initially met Bruce through Tony. Bruce was shy, loyal, and kind. He was the perfect calm foil to Tony’s sometimes manic energy. He was also exceedingly smart with a wickedly dry sense of humor.

The first time he’d joked with her, she, Tony, and Bruce had been in a group text about some crazy scheme Tony wanted to try that both she and Bruce were trying to talk him out of. Bruce had said something that surprised her and nearly caused her to laugh out loud in the middle of a sedate SI meeting. She’d quickly covered it—and the fact that she hadn’t entirely been paying attention—with a cough and a sip of water.

Jane and Darcy were fairly simple to know in that neither of them had much going on besides lab work, stargazing, and the occasional science conference. Those certainly took up time, but both women made an effort to come to some of Pepper and Natasha’s gab sessions, in whatever form they took. One of Pepper’s favorites was when Natasha taught them self-defense moves to take down people much larger than them.

Sometimes, if Tony was still working and Pepper couldn’t sleep, she’d head up to the roof, have a glass of wine, and watch the stars while Jane and Darcy did their science.

Every time Pepper saw them, the women were friendly, if sometimes distracted on Jane’s part. But once they'd decided to be her friends, they didn’t hold back. They talked animatedly about their interests, hopes, dreams, and frustrations. And they _listened_ when Pepper or Natasha did the same.

The others in the Tower were a different story, however. She found it hard to get to know much about them.

Sam Wilson seemed pleasant enough, sociable and calm, and he always seemed ready with a friendly smile or sympathetic ear, but Pepper had barely ever talked to the man. He was new to the team and still worked part-time down at the VA in D.C. Pepper had been fairly busy lately so, beyond welcoming him to the Tower when he’d first arrived, she hadn’t spent much time around him.

She thought he was pretty close to Rogers, Barnes, and Natasha, though. And Bruce had mentioned him a few times. He seemed like he was a good sort.

Thor was out of town fairly often. And by out of town, she meant off-planet. By dint of being an entire alien race’s future king, he was a pretty busy guy. And, if he was in the galaxy, he made an effort to accompany Jane and Darcy on whatever astrophysics thing they had going on. It made it kind of hard to get to know him. His and Pepper’s schedules didn’t exactly mesh.

From what Pepper had seen, though, Thor was exceedingly kind and happy. He loved both Jane and Darcy—though Darcy was definitely treated more like a beloved little sister than the lover Pepper knew Jane to be.

He could be boisterous and playful, but he usually tempered his strength knowing that humans were fragile compared to him. The only exceptions to that gentleness seemed to be Rogers and Barnes. They were certainly muscly enough to handle a little roughhousing from the resident alien-god.

And that thought led to the two Avengers that Pepper knew the least.

As far as she could tell, both Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were quiet, serious, and kept very much to themselves. They had a giant dog that looked to be half wolf and half shadow. If anyone knew where it had come from, no one said.

Aside from that, all she knew was that the three had shown up with the rest of the Avengers to fight the Chitauri. Rogers had his shield, Barnes had an arsenal, and they’d both had a black wolf dogging their heels.

In all reality, Pepper had the utmost respect for the pair of them. Both men were awake less than two weeks, probably knew next to nothing about the current century, and, still, they’d fearlessly fought aliens.

And Barnes: the man was a bona fide badass with balls of steel.

As far as Pepper knew, he was plain old human—even if no one knew how he survived being frozen and thawed—but he’d kept up with a god, a man augmented with a mechanical suit and helpful A.I., two former assassins who were the best in their fields, the original serum-enhanced soldier, and the Hulk. And he’d done so all the while having only a single arm.

While he wasn’t officially acknowledged as an Avenger, he was treated as such by the others.

Pepper’s assistant knocked on her office door and broke into her distracted thoughts.

She'd had a meeting scheduled for the next two hours but her assistant informed her that the firm just called to reschedule. Apparently a family emergency had cropped up and no one else was prepared to take the lead’s place on such short notice.

She had the next two hours free.

Pepper glanced at the stacks of papers and files on her desk. She had things she probably should finish up. But she really didn’t feel like it. Her attention span was awful right then. She decided that, since she had the next two hours free, she would take a break.

Pepper looked up from the dark screen of her StarkPad in her hands and over to her closed office door. She tried to decide what exactly she should do.

She could go out and chat with her PA, but she knew that he had work to do. That work would have been done without interruptions had Pepper gone to her meeting as scheduled, so taking up her PA’s time didn’t feel right. Just because she wasn’t feeling very focused, didn’t mean she had to inconvenience him.

So that left Pepper wondering what to do.

She knew all the scientists—Tony, Bruce, Jane, and Darcy—were busy working. As they should be. As _she_ should be. Clint and Nat were gone for the week on missions and she didn’t know anyone else well enough to just join them in whatever they were doing.

Maybe if she just wandered to the common level…? But she didn’t actually want to go there if she’d just be alone.

“Jarvis, is there anyone on the common floor?”

If no one was around, then maybe she’d just give up and fix herself a snack, whether she wanted one or not. Or maybe she’d make a cup of tea. Bruce had gotten her hooked on dark tea. Apparently he’d once met a Chinese man in India.

To her surprise, Jarvis didn’t answer her with a simple yes or no. The StarkPad she had yet to set down suddenly lit up and drew her attention. Strangely, it showed security footage. Before she could question why she was looking at most of the music room, the sound turned on and she heard piano music.

It was happy but also made her feel kind of sad. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. The music was upbeat but something about the notes made her feel… almost wistful. She had no idea why, exactly, because the music _was_ happy sounding.

Squinting down at the video feed, she couldn’t really tell who was playing. So she touched the screen and zoomed the camera in. It made her feel weird that she was watching. She felt like she was spying on whoever it was. But the music drew her. She wanted to know who played so beautifully.

Once she had a decent view of the piano, she realized just who she was looking at.

Tidy blond hair that had just reached the point where it could use a trim, ridiculously wide shoulders that led to an impossibly skinny waist many women would kill for: Steve Rogers. And, of course, the brunette leaning against his side. Not that Pepper expected Barnes to be someplace else. Wherever Rogers went, Barnes was usually close by.

Part of the narration the Smithsonian had sent her from the newly opened Captain America exhibit played through her mind._ Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. _

The music faded and Barnes turned to say something to Rogers. Pepper couldn’t hear what he said—it was too low—but Rogers was suddenly laughing. The sound rang out from her speakers. His head was thrown back and both hands pressed to his chest.

It was…unexpectedly adorable.

The way they were sitting, the way Barnes grinned over at Rogers, it almost looked like they were together—as in, _together_—but no. All the history books, all the biographies, said they’d had girlfriends back home when they’d gone off to war.

People might say that it had been decades since the ’40s, that they would’ve moved on, but Pepper had never held that opinion. It had been decades for everyone else, not for Barnes and Rogers.

She didn’t presume to know them—she’d literally just been thinking about how she _didn’t_ know them—but she could imagine. And she could empathize. Had she been in their shoes, if she suddenly lost Tony, there was no way she’d just move on to somebody new.

Forever was too soon if you loved someone enough.

“You and your love songs, Buck,” Pepper suddenly heard.

She watched Bucky reach his arm out to playfully punch Steve’s shoulder as Steve set his hands back to the keyboard. “You’re such a romantic, Rogers,” came the faint wry reply. “No wonder you never wanted to go out dancing with the girls.”

Steve paused and side-eyed his friend with a joking scowl. “Hey! I resemble that remark!”

Then it was Bucky who was laughing.

Steve started to play.

Pepper’s brows drew down. She knew that song. But she couldn’t place it. Steve started to sing and she knew for _a fact_ that she should know that song. She wracked her brain trying to figure it out.

It wasn’t until the end of the first verse that it came to her. The title popped into her head and she quietly sang along with the chorus.

_I just called to say I love you. _

_I just called to say how much I care. _

_I just called to say I love you. _

_And I mean it from the bottom of my heart._

Pepper hummed along with Steve’s singing. She couldn’t remember who originally sang it, but she knew that it had come out when she was a child, maybe ten or twelve.

She’d spent a week at her grandparents’ house one summer. Pepper's grandpa had come home from the store, smiling and happy, and had bounced over to her grandma.

_Guess what, Ginny! I heard a wonderful song on the radio today! It made me think of you!_

Then he sang it to her word for word, pulling her to the middle of the kitchen to dance. He’d always had a head for music and feet ready to move. Grandma had been the practical one. She used to say that Grandpa had his head halfway to the clouds.

Partway through the song, her grandpa had seen Pepper watching from the doorway and had swept her over to dance, too. She’d stepped on his feet more often then not, but she’d loved every second of it. Pepper had learned to dance because of him.

It was a wonderful memory, one Pepper was glad to remember, now that her grandparents were both gone. She quickly blinked the moisture from her eyes as Steve finished up the song.

There was a bit more talking between the men that she still couldn’t quite hear. Steve shook his head, chuckling once again at Bucky, before starting the intro to the next song.

Pepper instantly recognized it. Tony listened to it on occasion.

She knew that Tony had a special playlist he would sometimes put on in his lab if he knew no one was going to bother him. And she knew for a fact that Jarvis had instructions to switch to something badass—Tony’s words—if anyone was about to interrupt while he had that playlist on.

Jarvis never bothered to do so when it was Pepper who interrupted.

_Somebody to Love_ by Queen made her smile fondly. Suddenly she missed Tony. She resolved to drag him out of the lab that evening if he was still working.

Mostly taking the opportunity to just sit back and relax, Pepper closed her eyes and listened.

It still made her feel weird, but it felt worse if she watched them as well. It seemed more invasive. She knew it was idiotic and probably a cop-out but, if she closed her eyes, she could almost convince herself that she was listening to a playlist, not people that she sort of lived with.

“Do I get to pick a song or am I only here for your enjoyment?” Steve asked wryly.

“Oh, you’re here purely for my enjoyment. Why do you think I brought you on that crazy plane ride? It certainly wasn’t because of your looks. You lost those as soon as you grew up enough to turn into gawky knees and pointy elbows.” He sighed dramatically, shaking his head. “The things I’ve stuck around for…”

Their easy banter made Pepper smile and glance at her StarkPad screen. She was just in time to see Bucky receive a sharp jab to the ribs from one of those declared pointy elbows. He was laughing too hard to even try to block Steve.

“Just for that, I’m choosing the next song whether you like it or not.” Bucky was still too busy laughing and rubbing his ribs to protest.

The song Steve chose had Pepper tilting her head. She’d never heard it before. She listened closely as Steve played and sang.

“Jarvis, what is this that he’s singing?”

“_Human_ by Rag'n'Bone Man,” Jarvis replied.

The words of the song made her frown and think. Did people do that? Were Bucky or Steve treated as other than human?

The public…did treat them like that, Pepper realized. She dealt with the Avengers’ PR. The public treated _all_ of them like that.

Maybe the team stopped something bad from becoming worse, but then the public wanted to know why they didn’t prevent _everyone_ from getting hurt. Or they demanded that, because they were there—or because they weren’t—the Avengers should answer for a building getting damaged when some mad scientist deliberately loosed an army of robots into the streets.

Bucky had helped fight against the Chitauri and there were a few pictures of him doing so, but he wasn’t officially an Avenger so he’d been spared from the press conferences afterwards.

Steve, on the other hand, was the public leader of the Avengers. As such, he’d gotten _a lot_ of flak from reporters. The man had been ten days out of the ’40s and the press wanted to know why he hadn’t stopped the invasion before it had even started.

And the asshole from Fox News had asked where Captain America had been for all the other disasters that happened in the world over the years—as if Steve had been off taking a vacation, not frozen solid in a block of ice after drowning in the Arctic.

It had been awful.

The press and the public definitely treated them as other, as more than human, to be held to higher standards than everyone else.

Did the Avengers treat them that way? Pepper wasn’t around Steve or Bucky enough to really say for sure.

A small part of her absently noted when Bucky asked for another song and got teased for it. And she only vaguely noticed when Steve started _More Than Words_.

She was still stuck on the last song.

Did _Pepper_ treat Steve and Bucky like they weren’t human?

It didn’t make her feel very good, but she thought that maybe she did. Part of her _did_ think of them as other, even if it wasn’t to the extent of the public. They were both just so different, their lives so completely out of the realm of what she thought of as normal, that it was hard to think of something they might have in common.

Over the years, society had turned the men into legends. How does a normal person measure up against that? It was easier to just turn and ignore it. Pretend it wasn’t an issue and move along with her life.

If she was being honest with herself, maybe that was part of why she hadn’t made more of an effort to get to know them. Yes, she was busy. But she wasn’t so busy that she couldn’t take ten minutes every once in a while.

There were times when everyone ate dinner together. They didn’t do it a lot but it did happen. During those dinners, she tended to stick close to the people she already knew. Pepper talked to Tony, Bruce, Natasha, and Clint. And Darcy and Jane if they were around and Thor wasn’t. If Thor was there, then those two usually hung around him, catching up on life while he’d been away.

A frustrated growl pulled Pepper from her troubled thoughts. She glanced at the screen and then looked a little closer. She wondered just how long she’d been zoned out, lost in thought.

Steve was turned around on the piano bench watching Bucky. Bucky had dragged a couch cushion over to sit on the floor and was messing around with some kind of small instrument. His body was angled just enough that she couldn’t actually tell what it was.

“Calm down, Buck,” Steve said. “You know I’ll help.”

“I used to be able to do this myself!” His next words were grumbled and Pepper didn’t quite catch them.

“I know you don’t like it. But I’m not other people. How many times did you help keep my skinny, asthmatic ass from an early grave? Accepting my help won’t be the end of the world.”

“_It’s not about that_!” Bucky insisted. “You can strum all you damn well please, but it doesn’t change the fact that doing this backwards is _hard_. And I’m tired of stumbling around like a newborn fucking colt. I spent _years_ being _expert_ at this and now I can’t even get the fucking finger positions right—” He broke off in disgust.

Bucky set the instrument to the side with exaggerated care and got to his feet before grabbing it back up again. He headed for a stand next to the piano when Steve’s words made him pause.

“What if we re-string it? Switch the strings around so it’s a mirror, not upside down.”

Bucky looked down at the instrument, looking like he was seriously considering it. But he just shook his head. “No, I can’t do that. I’ll get over this just like I’ve gotten over all the other stuff. Playing it doesn’t make it mine. I swap the strings around and I screw somebody else over. I’ll just have to learn to deal if I want to play.” He shook his head, as if to emphasize the point to himself, and started for the stand again.

It was another voice that made Bucky stop. The ukulele—at least, Pepper thought it was a ukulele—was held out, a foot from being placed on the stand. “Pardon me, sirs, but I do not believe anyone else plays,” Jarvis told them. “You are the only ones who have touched it. I don’t think anyone will mind if you re-string the instrument.”

Bucky turned wide eyes on Steve, as if he was afraid to get his hopes up.

Steve quickly stood, holding his hand out as if to reach for him. “See, Buck? We can change the strings around and make it easier for you. No one will mind. You know that Jarvis—and possibly Pepper—are the only reasons things in the Tower run as smoothly as they do. If Jarvis says it’s fine, then I think we can trust his judgment.”

Pepper was surprised enough to hear her name that she almost missed Bucky asking Jarvis if they could take the ukulele back to their apartment.

Less than a minute later, the piano was closed up and the couch cushion replaced. The men headed out. Bucky kept looking at the ukulele as if it were precious to him. Or maybe as if _being able to play again_ was precious to him.

Pepper sat there thinking for a long time until there was a knock at her office door. Her assistant collected a file that he needed and reminded her that it was time to prepare for her next meeting.

Setting her StarkPad aside, Pepper gathered everything she would need, running through all her mental checklists so she wouldn’t forget anything.

It wasn’t until much later, when Pepper was getting ready for bed, that she realized she’d stopped thinking of them as Barnes and Rogers. Instead, they’d become Bucky and Steve and she wasn’t sure when she’d made that leap.

After all of her thoughts earlier that day, Pepper decided to make more of an effort to get to know them, to get to know all the other Avengers. She wasn’t doing anyone any favors by treating them as she had.

Climbing into bed, she silently promised herself that she’d do better in the future. No more taking the easy way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was mostly a one-off line, but the implication from this sentence still makes me sad. “All the history books, all the biographies, said they’d had girlfriends back home when they’d gone off to war.”
> 
> Becca and Stephanie were their sisters, their only family, much longer than they could have ever been their girlfriends. Yet, they were regulated to the roll of ‘the girlfriends left behind’ in history books. Most likely because it made for a better story.
> 
> No one wanted to know about the real Steve Rogers or Bucky Barnes. They wanted Captain America and his Sergeant, American Heroes who met a tragic end saving lives.
> 
> *****
> 
> **[Edited: 3-11-2020] (This is basically the same note that was posted on Kismet Chapter 4.)**
> 
> ****
> 
> **I need to, first, apologize to everyone who’s read this and patiently waited for the next chapter. I know I said that I’d get back to working on it in January 2020, but things haven’t quite panned out that way. Since October, I’ve been extremely busy (and not always in a good way). Very few things have turned out how I imagined and stuff just keeps happening. I won’t bore you with the details. It's hard to remember them all anyway.**
> 
> ****
> 
> **So, for making you wait, I’m sorry.**
> 
> ****
> 
> **I am still planning on finishing this fic but I’ve been having a lot of trouble with getting the chapter down on paper. I’ve got the songs picked out and have a rough outline of how things will (most likely) go, and I’ve got a little bit of it written, but I’ve been struggling a lot with it. It’s so much worse than the trouble I had writing Pepper’s chapter. That, plus a general lack of time that comes with doing that necessary thing called Life, has ended up with me working very little on the chapter.**
> 
> ****
> 
> **You might have noticed I’ve posted things lately that _aren’t_ my 5+1. They’re all either short or not very well written. For that, too, I’m sorry. It’s the way things have turned out. I do plan on finishing the 5+1, but it probably won’t be for quite a while. I’m not giving up on it but, well, I just don’t know when it’ll happen.**
> 
> ****
> 
> **If you want to come talk to me about it—or share thoughts, ideas, or encouragement?—feel free to send me a comment. I try to reply to each and every one, even if it ends up not being in a very timely manner.**
> 
> ****
> 
> **I appreciate every one of you who has taken the time to read my works. Thank you for sending Kudos and especially thank you for commenting. You all make me happy.**


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